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Have to agree, while I prefer MMOS with a more realistic virtual world feel, I still want them to be places where the fantastic happens, so have no problem with magic, even in my Sci Fi games. Heck, many things happen in real life that border on the fantastic and sometimes miraculous, why wouldn't I want that in my games?

Arrogant, Condescending, Dismissive, Elitist, "Meany", you speak as if these are bad things?Still currently "subscribed" to EVE, and only EVE!!!"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

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I am just fed up of lazy game mechanics in fantasy games; the 'its magic' excuse. Likewise in sci-fi, the unrealistic technological advancement is the equivelent.

It is just lazy, and winds me up hugely, but perhaps that is just me.

I am going to heal the entire team, how? Magic.

Now I am going to walk on water? Again magic.

Now I am going to rise from the dead. Bloody magic again.

while i agree in the lack of imagination about mechanics, i point te responses given here, we cannot create a complete copy of RL in a virtual universe.

i mean we can implemente things like:

-RL physics

-some sort of chemistry system (elements of the periodic table, reaction simulatons and that stuff, it could create in theory a very very very complex crafting system)

-RL based biomes and ecosystems

-weather and climatic phenomena

-item mitigation (food decays after a time, armor gets rusty without mantainance, etc)

-a complex liquid system (dinamic water, allowing for the use of pumps and things like steam engines, etc)

-realistic creature behavior (pack hunting, herds, etc)

-realistic NPC behaviors (something akin to NPC Sims?)

and many other things, but that means a huge amount of work, if not billions of lines of code. dont expect it to be done by a big company.

now about magic, and science, well, its because of the need of fast activities, if you look it from the mass market, i bet no casual player would like to act as a surgeon if that means the BG for example has to wait 15 minutes until every player has been healed.

in games like EVE, "healing" takes a certain time to get done.

things like a medics system or realistic cooking and crafting would take too much time for the average player who wants things NAO!

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Yes, magic is very lazy these days. Most prevalent in fantasy novels and theatre scripts but it bleeds to the gaming world. Magic is suppose to have a "high price" and damn that price should not always be poor freaking armor! I blame PvP for ruining everything in games. If game makers were not so over come with fear they might offend the PvP community they would go back to making mages in a power with price form. I doubt PnP D&D had any PvP and that is what games are founded on.

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I'll simply disagree with the OP; the whole reason I play "fantasy" themed games is FOR the magic. I want a world where the amazing happens and wizards and dragons exist. When I play a game (infrequent as it may be these days), I don't want to worry about all of the nuances as we have to in RL.

If you are suggesting you would like to have a less "high fantasy" experience, that seems reasonable although I don't know what games offer that in the way suggested.

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In answer to the various responses, I wouldn't mind if there was some consistency but it is just used as an 'easy fix'.

So it's the simpllicy of a one-world explanation of how you healed that's bothering you rather than the supernatural theme or missing downtime between being mauled by a bear and setting out for revenge?

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I think we would create more interesting magic systems with some restrictions. Like a few basic forces that mages can use. For instance walking on water or slow falling would be pretty easy, creating a non newtonian fluid from water for instance. But creating a fireball may be much harder.

I think one interesting way to make magic different is to timescale it. A warrior could become quite effective in a short time while a mage can become far more effective but only over a longer time period. And magic should be rare. There are numerous ways to achieve that. I discussed a few in my old make my own VOW game threads.

One important factor is making it hard to become a mage, and making current mages much less likely to hand out power to their allies. I went over various mechanisms for this. But there are others.

One other thing I dealt with was alchemy. For instance making a poison isn't just a damage buff. You would have various kinds of potions doing various kinds of damage which would not be as effective on all monsters. Killing a dragon might require a special potion that attacks dragon cells specifically and also has anti magic properties to counter magic healing.

There are a lot of ways to deal with this stuff. Note that video games almost never have magic limited by immutable laws. Writes like Harry Turtledove often created magic based on a set of rules that were consistent, so in order to get out of scrapes characters had to make logical moves that could be derived from first principles instead of just magic handwaiving.

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I am just fed up of lazy game mechanics in fantasy games; the 'its magic' excuse. Likewise in sci-fi, the unrealistic technological advancement is the equivelent.

It is just lazy, and winds me up hugely, but perhaps that is just me.

I am going to heal the entire team, how? Magic.

Now I am going to walk on water? Again magic.

Now I am going to rise from the dead. Bloody magic again.

So tell me, what would a realistic magic or future/alien technological advancement be?

And explain why that is more realistic over what we have currently.

edit - 150 years ago the idea of nanotechnology would have been ludicrous. 1000 years ago the idea that we could talk see and speak with people that are not even on thsi planet (astronauts), or that we could to space, or even fly, would have been ludicrous, withcraft or godly.

So the idea that just because we don't understand how something works, or even believe possible with our present understanding possible means it is not realistic is garbage.

1000 years from now, 100 years from now people will be doing things we did not believe were possible.

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The fantasy genre uses magic usually, even old folk tales, gods, and children's stories use magic. I prefer fantasy mmos to technology ones myself, sounds like maybe you need to play a more technology based mmo if it bothers you that much, might be the best thing for your emmersion.